


Wlar, what is it good for?

by AParticularlyLargeBear



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:28:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25982866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AParticularlyLargeBear/pseuds/AParticularlyLargeBear
Summary: The crimes of Schneider Bendie will not go unanswered this day.(Schneider pulls a prank. Dunlap is Displeased).
Relationships: Dunlap Figueroa & Schneider Bendie
Kudos: 10





	Wlar, what is it good for?

**Author's Note:**

> Dunlap is genderfluid and tends to switch pronouns. The narrative for this fic uses he/him, except when Dunlap is referring to themselves.

On this day, the very day of his vindication, the _triumph_ of the revelation of his true quality as a blaseballer (as determined by statistical analysis and metrics and what have you), his nemesis had struck him with a most terrible blow.

Dunlap regarded himself in the mirror. Between one and three sets of lips quivered.

Pink! His glorious, _immaculately_ styled mohawk of feathers had been dyed pink! It wasn't that the soft colour didn't suit him—as a peerless actrex he could embody any look they so chose—rather that the diabolical deed had been committed without his permission! And he knew a lot about diabolical deeds! He had an apartment in Hades! There could be only one individual, one pernicious and misbegotten malcontent that could be responsible for such a travesty.

Schneider Bendie! Millennial menace!

A frustrating and indefatigable foe!

Schneider Bendie! Blazing like a furnace!

Thorn in their side, wherever they may go!

Yeah, them. They were extremely annoying.

So perhaps Schneider had read into some of what he'd been saying online yesterday, when he'd managed to get cotton candy in his feathers and somehow, cloying and sticky as that was, the colour had very nearly been fetching. Nonetheless! That was mere speculation from those outside of himself! External parties could not rely upon a source so flighty and transient as the _internet._ Dunlap's feathers and dyeing thereof were a matter of his personal preference, _not_ the purview of prankery from Bendie.

The offence would not run so grievous were it not for the fact that, in the midst of their spats yesterday, some level of genuine warmth had broken through, a human connection, or at the least eighty percent of one. For a time, Bendie had been making a surreptitious approach towards tolerability, stepping into the breach Dunlap had abruptly sundered in his own walls, occupying the moment of vulnerability with a presence that should not have been near so steady nor so reassuring as it had been.

Dunlap embodied emotions. He _performed_ emotions. While feeling was an intrinsic part of an authentic portrayal, he felt _as_ the character that he was depicting, not as Dunlap Figueroa.

Of late, in these too-long days on this too-long siesta, emotion had become far too familiar a companion.

Schneider had... helped. Yes. They had helped. As much as the admission caught in Dunlap's throat. As much as they were vexing, they had recognised weakness, and they had not capitalised, they had commiserated. A timely reminder then, that the high drama of Landry's... death in the championships was not the sole moment of grief last season, that the blaseball league did not exist in a Tiger-shaped bubble, and for all that, an irritant such as Schneider could still extend empathy beyond themself, even when they, too, were in pain. That was sufficient, at least for a single eve, to give Dunlap a little pause, to make him consider that he was, perhaps, mistaken about Bendie.

Only for them to promptly grind that notion into the dust by DYEING DUNLAP'S FEATHERS THE THIRCE-DAMNED CUR.

Dunlap clenched between two and eight fists. This offence would not stand. They refused to allow it. Schneider would answer for this insult.

Around six hours later, Dunlap was not entirely prepared to admit that he had got carried away. The admission may have crawled its way into the periphery of his vision and developed a rudimentary semaphore system in an attempt to hail him, but he was steadfast! He was adamant! He was in charge of a full imp squadron that he had thusfar spent his entire afternoon attempting to wrangle! He was ignoring six missed calls from Fearful Symmetry and another seven from Kick Rocks!

Everything was within acceptable parameters!

Which was not to say that he was not still extremely nettled with one Schneider Bendie. He was! Immensely so!

Nonetheless perhaps the righteous flame behind his righteous rage need not be quite so literal as first intimated? Wanton property damage was certainly within his extensive repertoire, but mindless and directionless violence was so gauche. If Dunlap burned something to the ground, it needed to be via finely wrought metaphor or at the very least of some kind of institution or perhaps governmental building. Something worth the trip, and worthy of Dunlap's creative energies. Or at the very least, worth the punitive justice of the Tigers front office: an additional lap of the field.

Also at this stage, certain interested parties may or may not have been willing to accept Dunlap's declarations of hostilities upon Schneider and, well, New York in its entirety as open warfare. From Hades. All of Hades.

He was flattered that his gravitas was being so respected, of course. Just also mildly perturbed. Perturbed only. Not terrified.

Oh look that was another missed Fearful Symmetry call, ohohoho, to be a blaseball player slash renowned actrex upon siesta! 

Dunlap stepped off the train platform slash hellevator and into New York. 

At some point he had lost all of the imps and with the best will he could muster, they were utterly useless to begin with.

So he was left as a one-person war party on a one person mission that may have lost sight of purpose somewhere around the time it boarded the train.

The feathers looked…

Unprofessional.

Galling.

Rougeish.

Dashing.

He did not enjoy that he enjoyed the change in look. It made being indignant about it _much_ more of a challenge.

At this juncture, much of the anger had wicked away into something more melancholy, a wistfulness that Dunlap chose not to place a finger on, lest he dislike what it touched.

He meandered through the streets until he reached a familiar building, that selfsame tenement that he had spent the previous day. He thought he still had a figurine of folded paper in one of his pockets.

Dunlap hammered the apartment buzzer.

"Schneider Bendie!"

There was silence for a few seconds.

" _You know you're supposed to announce yourself, right? You can't just dramatically yell people's names and expect them to appear."_

"Schneider! Are you going to come down here, or shall she storm your very gates singlehandedly!?"

" _That whole gathering an army thing went great then._ "

"Schneider."

" _Fine, fine, I'm coming. Keep your feathers on. Your pink feathers._ "

Dunlap attempted a seethe, but his heart wasn't truly in it. More of a simmer, if he was to be honest.

Shortly thereafter, Schneider Bendie appeared, somehow contriving to look messy and stylish at the same time. As advertised, a pink streak swiped through their dark curls.

They looked him up and down.

"Nice feathers," they said, smirking.

Dunlap pointedly flicked his eyes up, and then raised between one and three eyebrows.

"Yeah, yeah," grumbled Schneider. "Anyway, aren't you supposed to be burning the city to the ground? I was promised anarchy and you're letting me down."

"She could not find sufficient incendiaries. Also it may have literally qualified as interdimensional warfare, and she will not give you the satisfaction of having provoked anything so grandiose."

"Be honest, you just couldn't convince anyone to come with you, could you?"

Dunlap scowled, dipped a hand into his pocket, and produced a fistful of dollar bills (the unusual currency in this city). In another hand, he extracted an Underworld Flames Lighter(tm).

"This is symbolism. She wouldn't expect you to understand." Dunlap promptly set the cash on fire.

"Did you seriously just tell an anarchist that they wouldn't get the idea of _burning money?_ Dunlap. C'mon." 

“She said what she said. Fear her wrath.” Dunlap let the money smoulder for a couple of seconds, and then dropped it on the floor.

They both stared at each other.

“Wow. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised your definition of war is about as weak as your grasp on not looking back.”

“Silence, Schneider. Your wagging tongue vexes her.”

Schneider paused.

Schneider grinned.

“ _Not like that you cretin._ ”

“Sure. Anyway, I got stuff to do, so like…” Schneider shrugged lazily. “I guess you can see if Dom wants to make more origami, Paper Tiger.” He ducked back inside, only holding the door for a brief moment, just long enough for Dunlap to interpose himself and slip inside.

He glowered at Schneider’s retreating back, and then took off in hot pursuit.

“She has at least four hours of monologues prepared, Bendie! Do not presume that you will escape so easily!”

“Cool can’t wait to listen to the wlakman instead!

"GET BACK HERE! YOU CANNOT FLEE FROM THE CONSEQUENCES FOREVER!"

Between one and three lips did not begin to tug into an exasperated smile, and any witnesses claiming otherwise were probably Millennials spending too much time on their phones to know what they actually saw.


End file.
